Is China about to ban ICOs?

According to reports coming from China the Chinese regulators are currently considering suspending all initial coin offerings(ICOs).

The report (published by Tencent who describe themselves as the “leading provider of Internet value added services in China”) claims senior members of the People’s Bank of China hosted their counterparts in the Securities and Futures Commission, the Banking Regulatory Commission and the insurance regulatory body on the 18th of August.

According to Tencent’s sources the group discussed a number of “regulatory oversights”, a list that included the growing size, scale and – by extension – threat of ICOs. It is the threat that concerns the Chinese regulators the most and the report includes mention of the fact that:

“If a large risk [to investors] is found, the [i.e. any new] regulations will even suspend all ICO activities and rectify them.”

It’s important to note that these regulations are still very much in production and input is being sought from all of the relevant regulators, financial bodies and governmental agencies. However, by the same token, the draft policies being discussed are expected to be made public by the end of 2017.

Industry spectators are viewing this crackdown on ICOs as an extension to action taken by the People’s Bank of China to effectively stop bitcoin trading earlier this year and trading which only resumed in June following the introduction of some wide-ranging legislative and regulatory reforms.

As lawyers who are working to help clients resolve disputes involving not only fraudulent ICOs but also almost every other type of digital fraud, we can know how quickly digital fraud is increasing so understand exactly why the Chinese – like so many other countries around the world and working are so hard and so quickly to tighten up the regulations around digital trading.

If you have found yourself the victim of any digital fraud, call us today on 020 7792 5649 or email us at info@selachii.co.uk. We can help.